Day Evans Dale Ensemble

Steve Day, poet, writer, percussionist has been around Discus Records for several years contributing sleeve notes for Keith Tippett recordings as well as reviews and other wordplay. Although he and comrades Peter Evans, Julian Dale, Mark Langford, have recorded for other labels, the Day Evans Dale Ensemble is a completely new venture with regular live dates in a range of venues. This seemed like an appropriate time to bring their 'new thing' to Discus Music; a mix of spoken word and spontaneous composition draws a direct line across 'jazz' and 'poetry'. It's difficult to try to label what's going on here; there's a strong political intent to many of these pieces - Not Quite Blue and Green Money are obvious contenders. The tracks Live In Seattle and Lorca reference late-Coltrane and Miles' Sketches of Spain respectively. Check out Peter Evans' electric violin excursions throughout; he positively interrogates the music, both questioning and confirming Steve Day's spoken narrative. And whilst Mark Langford's reeds and Charlotte Keefe's trumpet feed into their 'jazz' links, they also establish this music as a non-verbal poetic voice. A similar idea is demonstrated by Julian Dale's double bass hymnal quotes on The Pilgrim Mothers.  He acts as a second 'voice' duet to Jennie Osborne's renunciation of prayer on the final stanza, harking back to Charles Mingus' work with Langston Hughes. The Sheffield Discus Regulars, Martin Archer and Peter Fairclough, are no mere add-on, they bring an outside perspective to this radical 'activist' session – a cohesive recording of aural visioning.  If ever there was a time for such a thing it must be now.